


Out Of Eastwood

by reaperlove



Series: Somewhere in the Distance a Hawk Screams [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12x02 Coda if you squint at it from a distance, Attempt at Humor, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hugs, M/M, Mary Ships It, Pre-Slash, Sam Ships It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 04:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8564254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reaperlove/pseuds/reaperlove
Summary: Dean is suddenly obsessed with dicing vegetables. And fruits. And things. Not much more happens. Just Dean chopping vegetables *yawns*.





	

**Author's Note:**

> You don't really need to have read "Eastwood" first to understand this story, but it is officially a sequel to that fic. when you squint at it. And are a little near-sighted and not wearing your glasses.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you, [Kaeos(Tennyo)](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Tennyo/pseuds/Kaeos) for the wonderful cover art :)

 

Sam had honestly thought it would be a good idea. Mary obviously didn’t like to cook, he really sucked at anything that wasn’t salad and he was so fed up with diner food or reheated meat loaf. And after their little, very embarrassing reality TV stint and with the British Men of Letters in the wind for now, they deserved something nice and quiet, right?

 

Cooking had seemed to be something that Dean had always enjoyed and Sam really loved his burgers, but you can only eat so much red meat and grease without heading towards a surefire coronary. So he surprised Dean with a “Pasta for Two dining master class” at the Kansas Culinary Institute. No hint intended. Mary had absolutely not smiled fondly at Cas and her oldest son when she sprang in with half the money for the weekend’s fee (apparently hustling pool did run in both sides of the family). Cas and Dean had obviously decided to take it slow after what happened in Eastwood, but they were more fooling themselves than anybody else.

 

After putting on a show with a lot of eye rolling and the display of (fake) machismo, Dean had actually agreed to do it. For the sake of his whole family, sure, and because it had been rather quiet in the weeks following Sam’s rescue from the British men of letters. If Sam had only known back then what kind of weird Pandora’s box he’d open with this, he’d probably rather stocked up on Ramen.

 

Dean came back relaxed and with a new found enthusiasm for making home cooked dinners. And something else. They had pasta in several delicious varieties for the first week, before Mary put a gentle stop to it and declared Thursdays as their designated family noodle day. Dean seemed fine with that.

 

On monday, Sam found Dean cutting celery at 3am, approximately four tons of it, neatly sliced into perfect dices. Tuesday it was Mary’s turn to wake up in the middle of the night to Dean’s chopping of a buttload full of tomatoes and Wednesday it were onions, lots and lots of onions. Their whole walk in freezer slowly filled with all sort of cubed vegetables.

 

Two weeks and several perfectly square apple bits later, they went on a vampire hunt, and much to everybody’s relief, Dean didn’t bring his kitchen knifes, just a huge ass machete. Sam thought a good old hunt would take Dean’s mind off whatever drove him to prepare so much shaped food. He even considered suggesting a Clint Eastwood movie marathon, at least that was one weird fetish Sam was familiar with.

 

Mary and Cas found the vamp's nest within the first day and set up a trap, so all Sam and Dean had to do was sneak in by day and chop the heads off of five sleeping bloodsuckers and free their prisoners. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

 

It went like clockwork, heads were rolling around the floor in no time and Cas, Mary and Sam drove the still fully human victims to a hospital, while Dean hastily volunteered to stay back and do the clean up. They should’ve known that something was fishy about that.

 

And it definitely was. They returned to an outright bloodbath and a heavily panting Dean, who had neatly sliced every corpse into perfect dices. He looked sort of out of it and very weirdly happy. Everybody just froze and gaped at him. Somewhere in the distance a hawk screamed.

 

Sam ushered him into the Impala and Dean didn’t even protest when Cas pushed him in the backseat and put Dean’s head in his lap. It would’ve been an endearing sight, the angle awkwardly but affectionately petting his brother’s hair all the way back to Lebanon, but all Sam could do was trade worried glances with his mother.

 

Cas outright carried the sleeping Dean into the bunker, mojoed him clean and into a pair of flannel pyjamas before he tucked him in. He met with the rest of the family in the kitchen, brewed some strong coffee and just sat there, not saying a word, each marveling about what just had happened.

 

That’s how Dean found them in the morning, with a cup of coffee in their hands, tired eyes and a huge banner reading “Intervention” in bold, glittery pink letters hung up on the far side of the room. Cas had watched a lot of “How I met your Mother” recently and apparently taken to arts and crafts in his spare time.

 

“Ehm, good morning? May I ask what the fuck is going on here?” he asked while scratching his neck and slowly shuffling towards the chopping board, his eyes never leaving the silent assembly.

 

“Step away from the vegetables,” Cas growled and Mary immediately added “Sit down son, we want to talk to you for a minute.”

 

“‘Kay, if it’s only for a minute, I’ve got some carrots to slice and dice and-”

 

“Step. Away. From. The. Vegetables, Dean, I’m not kidding.” Cas punctuated each word with the stabbing of his finger towards an empty chair, eyes already glowing in a dim smiting blue, while Sam rhythmically banged his forehead on the table.

 

“Honey,” Mary took Dean’s hands in hers and tried to ignore the heavy breathing and wood beating coming from behind her, ”we are worried about you. Don’t get me wrong, I love your cooking and it’s great to see that you have found a new hobby, but this, this somehow might have maybe gotten somehow…”

 

“You’re acting like a lunatic!” Sam had finally raised his head again and was rubbing his aching forehead. “I’m sorry to be that blunt, but the amount of bell peppers, lettuce and whatnot you’re preparing here -”

 

“Chopping the living hell out of them and not only out of them!” Cas interrupted and waved his arms in the vague direction of, well, something. “What happened to the vampires? Dean, I might still not be too accustomed with the intricacies of human behaviour, but I know this is not normal, not that normal would necessarily be something that is desireable, what even is normalcy, that varies from culture to culture, I’m aware of that,” Cas voice wavered from angry to worried to dry lecturing and Mary took over again.

 

“Dean, what we are trying to say is, you have to stop the dicing, it’s gotten out of hand. We are here for you if you want to talk about it, whatever it is that is bothering you.”

 

Dean leaned back and surveyed the people sitting before him, expectant expression on their faces, and his first instinct was to throw some punches. He took a deep breath and then another, clenched and unclenched his fists. He slowly rose to his feet and leaned on the table, eyes narrowed.

 

“I’m fine, perfectly fine and I don’t know what the heck y’all are talking about. I’m simply trying to make this a home, something none of ya seems to be overly interested in. But I care! I care!” He kicked his chair aside and flounced towards the hallway. “Screw you, all of you! I’m taking a nap, so leave me the hell alone!” The last words were shouted and followed by the slamming of a door.

 

“That went well,” Sam mumbled and pinched his nose. For some reason, he felt a major headache coming up.

 

“I think someone should talk to him, we can’t leave him alone that upset.” Mary looked at Sam who looked over to Cas who rolled his eyes and sighed.

 

“I’m not sure that I’m the one who is best equipped to deal with this sort of crisis.” Cas stood in the middle of the room and plucked a non existent lint from his pristine coat.

 

“Come on, Cas. You know he won’t open the door and just yell the old “I’m fine, stop rubbing your chick flick crap off on me” routine before he’ll close up forever. You two have this “profound bond” thing going on, you’ll know what to do.” It was Sam who used the air quotes this time and Cas disliked that almost as much as he disliked his own words to be used against him.

 

“Castiel, you two seem two be very, very close...friends?” Mary raised her eyebrows but didn’t receive any answer to that half asked question, so she shrugged and continued. “I know that he trusts you, I’ve seen you interact with each other, it speaks of a certain, uhm, intimacy. He’ll talk to you.”

 

Sam couldn’t suppress a smirk, his mom was a keen observer, no wonder she was such a good hunter. Cas just just threw his hands up and shuffled out of the kitchen, muttering something like “send the socially awkward seraphim, brilliant idea” and Sam asked himself, not for the first time, how much more sass Lucifer had left behind in Cas. Better not open that can of worms. He smiled at his mother instead and started to make them a nice cup of herbal tea.

 

 

 

Cas hesitated to knock on Dean’s door, he felt utterly ill prepared. But Dean was his friend, Mary was right about that and friends were supposed to be there for each other in a moment of despair. He straightened his shoulders.

 

“Dean, it’s me, Cas, please let me in.” He waited for a reply and tried again, this time a little more insistent.

 

“Just open it, don’t make this unnecessarily complicated. You know I’m very well capable of blasting right through this door.” Cas absolutely didn’t mind playing the “awesome angel power” card. He was on a mission and the mission justified every means necessary.

 

He heard some muffled insults and bed springs creaking.

 

“You know I can hear you, I’m a celestial being, you ass.” On second thought, insulting his target probably didn’t help. But the door actually creaked open and he was let inside.

 

“You drew the short straw, huh?” Dean was surprisingly calm as he swung himself back onto the mattress, hands crossed over his chest. He didn’t make eye contact, but to Cas’s utter surprise, Dean looked like he’d been crying. Cas sat down on the chair beside Dean’s bed and gave him time to formulate his thoughts. It was a long, but not entirely unpleasant silence.

 

“I know I’m fucked up, Cas and I’m sorry I stormed out like a spoiled brat, it’s just that I can’t, I just can’t”, Dean exhaled deeply,”I felt cornered, man, what were you expecting me to say? I’m screwed in the head, nothing new here, it’s just on a whole new level.”

 

Dean turned on the side to face Cas, who had to inhale sharply at the downright heartbroken look on his friend’s face. Thousands words were on his lips, like “you are not broken, Dean” or “your family does care about you, I care about you”, but he knew better than to interrupt Dean’s train of thought.

 

“I’m happy to have mom back, hell I’m thrilled, but I have a hard time letting go of the image I had of her as the perfect caring wife and mother. I don’t even know what’s real anymore, ya know? I wish I could hug her and everything is okay, like I’ve always imagined it would feel.”

 

He wiped his hands over his face and closed his eyes.

 

“I love the “real” Mary, I really do. It’s just that she’s more Mary than mom, I don’t know how to say it. It feels like I’m grieving a mother that never really was there, just in my imagination and that’s so freaking stupid.”

 

Cas couldn’t help himself any longer and reached for Dean’s hand, which Dean hesitantly stretched out to him. He stroked his knuckles and could see some of the tension bleeding from Dean’s shoulders.

 

“It’s not stupid, Dean. You were a small kid when she died and your father filled in the blanks you inevitably had to have and he painted a picture of your mother that he needed to be true, for his and for your sake. that’s what you remember, what you had no reason to doubt for over thirty years. Of course it’s hard to let that go.”

 

A small smile played on Dean’s lips which instantly vanished when he continued to speak.  
“And in that cooking class, it was all about making your loved ones happy. And that’s all I ever truly want. Make a home for all of you, a real home. That’s my job, my responsibility, to make everybody happy.” he looked at Cas and sadness darkened his green eyes. “So nobody leaves me again.I’m so afraid I end up lonely, alone.”

 

Now it was Cas’s turn to get teary eyed and without a second thought, he flung himself at Dean and engulfed him in a tight koala hug. Dean tucked his head into the crook of Cas’s neck and didn’t let go. They lay there for a long while, just holding on to each other, Cas whispering “I’m so sorry, Dean, so sorry” and kissing Dean’s forehead in between promises to never leave him again, at least not for long and without knowing when and if he comes back.

 

Dean told him how he needed something to do with his hands, to be able to control something, to be useful. That had subconsciously turned into the obsessive dicing, Now that he thought about it, it made sense to Cas.

 

Dean fell asleep like that, with Cas protectively curled around him. Cas closed his eyes and concentrated on Dean’s calm, rhythmic breathing. A better, a different future lay before them and he would make sure to take at least some of the burden from Dean’s shoulders.

 

He didn’t notice Mary sneaking in and laying a warm blanket over them or Sam’s warm smile from his place at the door. They would make it work, together and with significantly more vegetables than before.

 

 

.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the ULTIMATE ANNIVERSARY [SPN Coldest Hits](http://spncoldesthits.tumblr.com), the Battle of the Losers, prompt: No Red Shirts and write a sequel to your winning fic that must include a line of your winning fic. The sentence I re-used was "Somewhere in the distance a hawk screams." 
> 
> Please leave kudos and a comment so I know anybody actually reads this.
> 
> You can always talk to me on [tumblr](http://reaperlove77.tumblr.com), especially if it's about promoting all the other awesome Coldest Hits fics (and promote them with the #teamreaperful and #spncoldesthitspromo to help me win :)


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